Meeting of the Council of National Minorities with Paata Zakareishvili

On February 1, 2013 the Council of National Minorities, under the auspices of Public Defender of Georgia met with Paata Zakareishvili, State Minister in Reintegration Issues at hotel “Ambasadori”. Public Defender of Georgia, Ucha Nanuashvili and Deputy State Minister in Reintegration Issues, Ketevan Tsikhelashvili attended the meeting.

Several members of the Council expressed the will to establish separate department in order to work on integration of national minorities in Georgia or to shift the Council under the auspices of Prime Minister. State Minister affirmed that the work on dividing functions in the Ministry and on establishing a separate department working on integration issues has already been launched. Regarding the structure of the Council, Paata Zakareishvili stated that working under the auspices of Public Defender is the most efficient mechanism for affective functioning of the Council. This on the one hand preserves the independence of the Council and on the other, gives it the possibility of strong cooperation with state bodies. This view was supported by the majority of the members of the Council. Paata Zakareishvili called upon the members of the Council: “We call the Council to shift our cooperation in a more collaborative mode, address us with applications having subsequent justifications and I will solicit you for timely response on your requests by all ministries”.
 
Deputy State Minister, Ketevan Tsikhelashvili stated that during two weeks the Ministry will work on the report of National Concept for Tolerance and Civil Integration, after which a plan for a year should be elaborated. Working on the budget of 2014 has also been commenced. Therefore, Deputy State Minister offered the members of the Council to address the Ministry with renewed suggestions in order to reflect them in the action plan and the budget in a short period.
 
Members of the Council discussed issues of hate speech, infrastructural challenges, preserving minority languages and culture, unemployment and other problematic issues. State Minister proclaimed that all these issues equally concern Georgian citizens, despite their ethnic origin, and all stakeholders should work on solving these problems in open, discussion based and collaborative manner.
 
The meeting was organized by the Tolerance Centre under the Public Defender of Georgia and by Advancing National Integration (ANI) project of the United Nations Association of Georgia (UNAG) funded by the USAID.
 
In the near future, members of the Council will meet with the representatives of the Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection of Georgia, the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia and the Ministry of Justice of Georgia.

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